


fate ties us together, like sailor's knots and tangled vines

by phoenyxies (berriesbloom)



Series: the birds will all sing a song in halcyon [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Critmas Exchange, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berriesbloom/pseuds/phoenyxies
Summary: Fjord and Caduceus have a quick conversation, and Caduceus gives advice to Fjord, who helps Caduceus in a way the cleric didn't expect from him.
Relationships: Beauregard & Caduceus Clay & Fjord & Jester Lavorre & Nott & Caleb Widogast & Yasha, Caduceus Clay & Fjord, Caduceus Clay/Fjord, can be read as - Relationship
Series: the birds will all sing a song in halcyon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583410
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2019





	fate ties us together, like sailor's knots and tangled vines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hufflepirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/gifts).



“Caduceus?” Fjord called out, his voice accompanied by the creaking of the wooden ladder beneath him. The house was bustling with activity downstairs, people running about the hallways of the stone mansion and shouts carrying just barely into the top of the tower, where Fjord was. 

His hands were currently busy with the tea set he’d brought up from the kitchen, which had taken him a few minutes to prepare thanks to watching Caduceus make tea several times. He could only get up the ladder a little before he had to pause, glaring at the closed hatch that separated the tower from the garden on top. “Why couldn’t have Caduceus been in the tower,” he grumbled under his breath, balancing the simple wooden tray on a rung as he reached up. “Would’ve made this so much fuckin’ easier- shit!”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the tea set beginning to tip, and reacting on instinct he grabbed for the tray. The ladder shook, and he fumbled for a few terrifying seconds before getting a grip on the set. Only a few drops of tea had been displaced, thankfully, but both of his arms were now extended awkwardly in between two of the rungs, holding the set for dear life. Fjord tried to bring it back through the space, but it got stuck, the tray’s sides too wide. “Why is this the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life? This is ridiculous.” He groaned. And he hadn’t even gotten the hatch open yet.

It took another five minutes of struggling for him to get up the ladder, using his head to push the hatch back and onto the dirt-covered stone of the roof. He blew a runaway strand of hair out of his face. Glancing around the garden, he took in the vibrant plant life that was still beginning to take root in the newly packed soil. The air was crisp, and the cool breeze nipped at the exposed skin of his neck. It was nice sometimes, the constant night around them, and the glass jars that hung from the branches of their tree swayed gently from left to right. The atmosphere was peaceful, almost soothing enough to pull Fjord away from his reason for being up here in the first place.

A rustling of fabric drew his attention to the tent-like structure leaned against the tree where Caduceus was beginning to peak out from.

“There you are.” Fjord sighed, walking forward. “I suppose you just woke up?”

“Oh no.” Caduceus blinked slowly, rising to his full seven feet of height. Fjord’s gaze followed him up. “I’ve been awake. I was just about to come help you, but I see you were able to get the hatch open.”

“Oh.” Fjord cleared his throat, face starting to burn. “You heard that.”

“Mhm. I’ve seen you conquer terrifying foes, Fjord, I didn’t expect the door to the garden to be one of your tougher opponents.” Caduceus’s lips shifted into a jovial grin, ears twitching as Fjord stammered.

“Yes, well, I’m glad I entertained you, Caduceus, so glad.” Fjord turned to face the base of the tree. His cheeks were flushed, and he briskly walked forward to escape Caduceus’s gaze. The tray is set down on a nearby wooden crate, and he busies himself by sitting on the bunches of blankets bundled there for coMort among the crunching leaves. Caduceus followed suit. “Anyways, forget all that. I... have something to ask you.”

Caduceus reached and lifted the cover of the teapot, glancing inside then looking back to Fjord, pink eyelashes low. “Oh, I was going to ask what the tea was for. A question. Well done, by the way, can I ask which of the families this is?”

“The label said Jhirva, I think? I chose the one that smelled nicest, good to see I chose correctly.” The cups arranged, Fjord took the teapot from Caduceus and began to pour. He was very thankful he hadn’t screwed up the process. Making tea is more difficult than it looks, but at least he had memories to call back on and the ability to pester someone until they helped. This was all him, he thought to himself, a little proud and feeling silly because he was proud.

“The Jhirvas were florists, I’d expect their tea to smell very nice.” Caduceus took his and held it in his hands, gazing back at Fjord. “What was your question?”

“Oh, yes.” Fjord glanced down to his hands, feeling his friend’s steady gaze stay settle on him. It wasn’t unsettling, it was Caduceus, but he was fairly self-conscious at the moment, fingers worrying at the hems on his shirt sleeves. “Well, as you know,” he cleared his throat again to mask the break in his voice on that last word, “the Wildmother has taken me on as one of hers. Under her wing, so to speak.”

“Yes, I know. I was there.”

“Of course, of course. And when I had that vision, in the seaweed, she asked me to protect all that is hers. I will do that the best I can, to the extent of my ability and beyond, but… what is it I have to _do_?” 

Caduceus took a minute to sip at his tea, humming under his breath. The cup looked smaller in his grip, and Fjord noticed the small flecks of white calluses and scars among his softer gray fur. He looked down at his own hands, clutching at the other tea cup, covered in rough lines and starker scars. He still had the jagged one on his palm, from the pact, and numerous others that had split the skin of his fingers but been healed soon after. He hadn’t really taken a second to see that, and remember just how far they’d come. Especially from the days spent on the sea, with him unsure of everything and Caduceus out of his element. He would’ve never expected himself to end up here, in the low jarlight of Xhorhas and following a deity he had only heard of a few times before meeting the grave cleric. He looked back up to Caduceus, who was still sipping his tea. His eyes were still in Fjord’s direction, but focused on something else. Probably thinking about how to answer. By now, he knew Caduceus. Not the intricacies of his past, or anything like that, although Fjord should ask about that soon. He knew his mannerisms, how he acted, and that the silence from the firbolg was not a loss for words, but a state of thinking that he found himself in often. 

“What do you think you have to do?” Caduceus asked simply, eyes finally moving back to meet Fjord’s.

“I don’t know. The way it was phrased sounded epic, almost, but I don’t know if she really expects me to slay monsters or threats to the wildlife on the daily. Is there a holy mission to this overall? Am I missing something?” _Am I doing enough?_ Caduceus held eye contact with Fjord, not blinking, and Fjord knew he knew what he had really meant. He always knew.

“Well,” Caduceus placed his now empty cup down. Fjord immediately reached forward to refill it, and Caduceus’s smile grew just a little. Fjord smiled back. “I think you’re right. The purpose of your service, and by extension mine, is not to slaughter her enemies. The work we have been doing is no laughing matter, either, because we are protecting Melora’s light just as much as we’re protecting lives.

“But, nature is patient. She is not slow; we see her speed in the licks of a flame when it burns, or in the gait of an animal that is starving. She takes her time when a flower is learning how to bloom, or when the flesh of the departed gives itself back to the earth it was birthed from. The Wildmother knows when the trees should sway, or when the breeze should brush the grass, but she will not rush it. She knows that all good things take time, and that all seeds need to decide to grow themselves if they see fit. There is a time and place for everything, and it will take time to get to those places.

“I don’t think it’s a question of _how much_ you’re doing, Fjord. I can’t say we have a, a holy mission. We have a purpose, a destiny, the Wildmother expects something of us. We are destined to be something for her. But we aren’t born with a holy sword in one hand and a piece of parchment telling us our purpose,” Caduceus starts to chuckle, and Fjord’s grin grows. “It is our duty to find it. It’s our job to live that. And find out what it is she wants us to do.”

“It’s not always some epic quest. We follow her light, we appreciate what she has given us and what she continues to give us. Our devotion to her is not always world-altering. And that’s fine. It doesn’t take much to make a difference.

“There’s not much else I can tell you. There is no holy mission spelled out in Common, but if you’re worried about not doing enough, Fjord, I have a mission for you.”

He peers into Fjord’s eyes closer. At this point, the air has stilled, and so have both of them. Their tea has whiffs of heat left, most of it leached from the cup and into their palms. Caduceus’s stare does not feel prying, or probing; it feels steadying. 

“Now, I know why you decided to follow the Wildmother. But I want you to _know_ what it is about the Mother that drew her to you. I want you to find something in that for yourself. I connect to Melora through my meditation, my plants, and through the life and death around me. How will you connect to her? What is it about her domain that brought you to her breast, enough to follow her and enough to do what you did that night at the forge? Figure that out for me.”

Caduceus leans back, attention returning to his teacup. Fjord is left staring at him, and he blinks. What Melora is to him? He gazes at the firbolg across from him, fingers tightening around the teacup.

“What do you mean by-”

“Fjord! Caduceus!” Like a blur of blue and darker blue, Jester nearly catapulted herself out of the hole in the floor, hair frazzled and stuffed into a hasty bun. Her face was nearly split in half by a huge grin. “We’re going to Nicodranas, we’re going to Nicodranas! You got, like, thirty minutes or an hour or two or something to get your stuff together ‘cause we’re gonna be there for a couple of days, okay?”

Fjord looked from Jester to Caduceus, who was unfolding his long limbs and standing up from where he sat. “Oh, that’s nice.” Caduceus hummed. “Unexpected. Fjord and I just finished talking.” He smiled warmly back at Fjord.

“Yes, we did,” Fjord laughed a little. “But-”

“I know, I have the best timing always and ever!” Jester laughed, making her way down the ladder. “Come on, let’s go, we aren’t gonna wait for you if you’re gonna take for-e-ver!”

By the time Fjord had whipped back to face Caduceus, he had already disappeared into his tent perched near the tree, and he sighed. Picking up the tea set and walking back towards the hatch, he was already lost in his thoughts.

He didn’t really know what he was lacking, or if he was lacking anything at all, when it came to the Wildmother. Before Caduceus, he had known her name at most, and vaguely what was considered her domain (which he had figured was just plants and shit). She only became more and more familiar to him with Caduceus in the group, and even more so when the situation with his former patron worsened. He had spent hours upon hours pouring over books in shops about whatever god seemed better than the one he had fallen in with. She was nature, she represented more than he had thought and it was odd how connected he felt with her. But why?

Fjord set the tea down on the kitchen countertop, the sounds of muffled chaos as background noise while he cleaned. He looked over the hand carved wood cups carefully, using a rag to dry off the water droplets left from the quick washing he’d done. His blunt nails tapped against the polished grain, and he frowned a little.

Caduceus’s mediation and gardening were fun, as was his tea, but it wasn’t… It didn’t strike Fjord as something he would do without thought. It took him several minutes to make this tea, goddamnit, and it wasn’t really his _thing_. Maybe that was what Caduceus had meant by connecting with her. If tea and meditation was Caduceus’s way of communing, and drawing was Jester’s, he should find something like that. But what?

A loud bang drew Fjord’s attention, and a faint screech in the direction of the laboratory confirmed Nott’s presence. Quickly he put up the tea set in the cabinet, and headed for the stairs. On the way to his room, Beau and Jester’s door was ajar, and he could hear clattering and the occasional grunt of frustration from Beau. He couldn’t help but smile again as he stepped into his room. The interior of the stone walls were bare, only wooden furniture pushed up against them with a blue rug on the floors and the curtains drawn. 

He busied himself with getting his things ready, stuck for a few moments between putting on his armor or not. His answer came in the form of Jester skidding by his door, muffled conversation between her and Beau just inaudible beyond the door. He peeked from his room and into theirs. “Hey, Jester, do we need to armor up for this or what?”

Jester was hunched over a canvas, wooden palette clutched in one hand and a brush dripping with paint in the other. She peeked around it, grinning at Fjord, which he couldn’t help but return. Beau was digging through her pack on her bed, paying no attention to him.

“Uhhhhh, maybe? I don’t know, really, what do you think, Beau? It’s just a visit but crazy seems to follow us wherever we go.” She glances over at her friend, still on her perch. Beau looked up, glancing from Jester to Fjord. 

“I’d go for it, we can dress down again when we’re there. Isn’t that big of a deal.” Beau sniffed, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. She looked back to Jester, her perpetual frown starting to soften. She quickly clambered up from the bed, and as Fjord started to turn back into his room, went to Jester. “You know you’ve got paint all over your cheek, Jes, come here-”

Her words were cut off by the sound of Fjord’s door closing, and he turned back to his barebones room. His eyes strayed to the empty wall across from him, and he looked at it for a second. Maybe he should have Jester paint it. She seems to be on another painting kick so it couldn’t hurt, he mused as he began to tie on his armor. It took him only a few seconds to fully put it ion, his hands flying over the complicated knots that held the leather to his broad chest. But he wasn’t sure how to ask, or even what should be on there. Maybe he’d ask her to surprise him. Or not, she might go overboard and he’d have a mural of something oh so wonderfully obscene that he’d stare at whenever he slept in this house. He paused after that thought, glancing down at his armor and its knots. His fingertip ran over the complicated pattern he had just gone, and hummed in thought.

It took only another ten to fifteen minutes for everyone to meet on the roof again, Caleb and Nott working to get the teleportation circle ready even before anyone else had arrived. Jester had the canvas under her arm, Yasha was saying something to Beau, and Caduceus was just emerging from his tent when Fjord finally got up onto the roof. Thankfully, Jester had remembered to use a spell to tell Yussa they were incoming several minutes before, and she was practically buzzing with excitement. With a nod to Caleb, he marked the final chalk line in the circle, and it flared up with honey-golden energy and a faint hum. From there, being greeted by Yussa and being escorted out of his tower took only a few minutes before they were out on the sunny streets of Nicodranas. 

The group was alight with chatter on their way to the Lavish Chateau, but Fjord hung back a little, and took a moment to gaze around the lively portside streets. Folks of different colors and races were threaded through the shops along this particular market, a shortcut to the inn, and all around him there was varied conversations about different things. The bustle was nice, and a different flavor from that of Roshona or Zadash or any other town they stroll through. It struck a chord, in Fjord, that was more nostalgic than he expected. Past voyages upon his old ship, with his old crew mates long gone, flashed through his mind before being lost against amongst the port's chatter.

He had spent years at sea, years under the tutelage of captains and at the mercy of the sea that swallowed their boat. The flashy market scene reminded him of the different ports they would stop in, for cargo and jobs and an ale at the salt-stained tavern that was a constant in any port city. The live he lived now was not much different on the outside; he had a crew, Fjord thought as he looked back to his friends a few feet in front of him, and he saw sights he would never see if he lived in one town for the rest of his life. But with seafaring, there were constants. There was a routine, inherent in the paces they took on the water and on hewn stone. With the Mighty Nein, there was no such thing. It reminded him of the knots he'd tied with just muscle memory, like the motions had become second nature. Maybe that was something he could somehow... incorporate into worship? There was braiding you could do with leather, or plain rope. It was a silly thought, and maybe he was just getting too swept up in the past, but something about the idea tugged at his heartstrings. He filed it away from later.

As they neared the Chateau, Jester and Nott pulled away from the rest of them, Jester laughing the whole way to the door and Nott’s visage shifting to Veth before she pushes the door open. Fjord watches as everyone walks inside, and follows behind his friends with a soft smile on his face.

The two of them stand, side by side, as Jester and Beau walk to meet Marion, who was sitting at one of the tables in the main area. He spends a few moments, watching Jester preen at the praise Marion murmurs as she looks over the colorful canvas Jester had brought with her. Beau and Yasha sit at the table, talking, and Caleb follows Nott as she embraces Yeza, Luc bouncing with endless youthful energy as he calls the wizard to look at something in a book on the table. 

Fjord looks to Caduceus, about to say something, before he stops himself. There’s a look in Caduceus’s eyes, that makes the words die on his tongue. He glances back to the clamor in front of them, Jester with Marion and Nott and Caleb with Yeza and Luc, and looks again to Caduceus. He knows that feeling in his eyes, he knows it dearly. He'd never seen this before, from Caduceus, and his chest clenched with guilt when realizing he must not have noticed sooner. Seeing his white knuckles clench his staff and its base, Fjord wordlessly threads his fingers through Caduceus’s free ones, and when Caduceus looks to him, he looks back.

“I’m going to the shoreside,” Fjord says, the words tumbling out of his mouth while offering a smile to go along with them. “Come with me.”

Caduceus takes a moment to glance back at everyone, his normally calm expression melting into one of melancholy, and Fjord squeezes his hand gently. “Come on.”

The two turn back to the door, and Fjord leans back to call Jester’s name. She perks up from her seat on the bench. “Caduceus and I will be on the shore, we’ll see you all there?”

She nods, and Fjord leads Caduceus out of the Chateau, hands still intertwined. 

“I think I know what you meant, Caduceus, about connecting to the Wildmother through something that’s just for me.” Fjord says, thumb rubbing carefully along Caduceus’s knuckles as he spoke. Caduceus was quiet, just behind Fjord, and it took a moment for him to hum for Fjord to continue. "I won’t lie, being taken on as a paladin of hers comes with benefits I can't just ignore. The holy power is certainly a bonus, and is very helpful.” He chuckles, and turns to look at Caduceus as they walk. Caduceus meets his gaze, and Fjord can tell he was some form of taken aback, and he couldn’t help but feel a little proud at taking Caduceus off his usual rhythm. He pressed on, not fully knowing where he was going with this but somehow sure of his words, and spurred by the vaguely curious looks the cleric was giving him. “Remember the question you gave me earlier, about how I need to find a way of communing with her that is my own?”

Caduceus nodded, gazing in front of them, the warm colors of the growing sunset reflecting off of his face. “Yes, I... didn’t expect you to have an answer so soon.”

Fjord laughed. “I didn’t either, but coming here was unexpected too. I thought we were staying in the Xhorhaus for another day or two, but here we are. Anyways,” he stopped walking, and so did Caduceus. “I do have some sort of an answer, I think, but that’s not what I dragged you here for, really.”

A few several stretches of sand before them, the waves were lapping at the edge of the shore, land deserted by people having dispersed to their homes for the coming evening. The sky was smudged in an array of oranges and blues and whiffs of gray as the clouds rolled past. The sea stretched far and far into the horizon, not stopping for anything, and ended far beyond what their eyes could perceive from where they stood. Specks of what Fjord assumed were feathers of far away birds, swept across the sky. He looked back to Caduceus. A sudden lump began to form in the depths of his throat, but he started to speak again anyways.

“I didn’t have a mother.” Caduceus snaps to face him, tearing his eyes from the sight in front of them. “I didn’t get to grow up in a home with a hearth, or a cabin with a garden, or a hotel in a room front from its front. I didn’t get that. So I don’t know what it’s like to miss something I never had, but I know you did. I can see it in your eyes, Caduceus. I saw how you watched Jester, and Nott, and Marion and Luc.” The firbolg looked down, his gaze falling, and Fjord squeezed his hand again to bring it back to him. “You had a family that you miss. That’s perfectly alright. You can talk about it, you know.”

“I know.” Caduceus murmured, voice more terse underneath its rumble. “I just didn’t know if I should.”

“Then take this as me telling you that you should and can always talk to me, just like you let me talk to you, alright? Come, let’s sit. Tell me something about your mother, about everyone.”

Fjord leads Caduceus closer to the shore, just before the water can lap at their robes and clothes. Knees knocking together, hands still held, Fjord quietly prods at Caduceus until he talks. He tells him stories of his mother, Constance Clay, who sang while she baked and would smack the fingers of impatient little firbolgs who tried to eat the goods too early. She would hold them as they cried, but wouldn't hesitate to scold them if it had been a mistake of their own stubbornness. Once, Caduceus told him, Colton had pulled a very over-the-top prank on their aunt, and she didn’t hear the end of it from their mother for a year. He tells him of Cornelius Clay, a loving man who left the scolding to his wife and instead would shower the children in love and attention when he could. He had taken Caduceus on a tour of the Blooming Grove once, when he was small and didn’t leave their home as much as the others, and it was one of his fondest memories. The wonders of the Wildmother had been shown to him in the form of beautiful unfamiliar flowers and their blooms, creatures that ran and scuttled across the bark and the grass of the woods, and the alien sounds that not even Cornelius could fully explain to him because of the cacophony of different beings that lived there as they did. 

Fjord listened to Caduceus talk, watched his expressions shift and his smile grow, and laughed along with him at the stories Caduceus was brimming to tell. He couldn’t have counted the minutes if someone had asked him to. It seemed like well-spent ages had went by before they heard the sound of rambunctious action start to crest the hill they had walked down to get to the beach. Luc and Nugget barrel down the hill, halfing after dog, heading to the water. The sun has an hour left, so Fjord could only watch as Luc begin to play with Nugget in the sand.

“What was it, the way you plan on connecting with the Wildmother?” Caduceus asks, the lines near his eyes crinkling with the smile he gave Fjord. Fjord smiled back.

“Oh, that.” Caduceus chuckled at him, and Fjord smiled wider. “I think I'm... going to try to find a conch shell. To start with. One of the things that always drew me to the sea was its vast expanse, Caduceus. There isn’t many ways to recreate something like that in a stone bedroom located in Roshona, or everywhere else. Meditating is one way, reminds me of the vigils I used to take on my old ship. It’s nice, it’s calming, but they do say you can hear the echo of the ocean if you put your ear to a conch shell, I've done it myself, so I thought I’d find one to bring with me places. And maybe I’ll ask Jester to paint me a mural on my wall, of the shoreside here in Nicodranas. It’d be nice to have something to look at, once in a while. I’d love to go into town too, see if I can’t find any rope or thread, and start practicing my sailor’s knots again. Maybe it’s too much, now that I think about it-”

“No,” Caduceus says, and Fjord looks up at him. “It’s nice. It’s real nice. I think she’d like it.” He pauses, looking down before looking back up to meet Fjord’s eye. “Could I help you look for all that? I don’t have much else to do.” 

“Of course.” Fjord reaches forward for his hand again, but Caduceus just steps forward and wraps him in a hug. Fjord returns it, ignoring the looks Beau was giving him from her place next to Caleb and Nott. He flipped her off, and grinning, she did the same in return.

“You’’l have to tell me what a conch shell looks like, though. I don’t think I’ve seen one of those before.” Caduceus hums, and Fjord relaxes into the rumble of his voice reverberating through his chest. He laughs.

“Yeah, of course.”


End file.
